Writer/Actor/Filmmaker

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The Wonder Woman movie is out today! Wonder Woman’s long been one of my favorite comic book characters, and it’s about time she finally gets her due.

One of the benefits of having a beta reader who’s also an awesome artist is you get sweet fan art like this from Marissa Trudel, featuring Lilah Martinez (aka Chimera) from the first book in my upcoming Knights of Fate series. Even superheroes-in-training have their role models.

I’ve found that, especially in the last several years, I’ve been more drawn to writing female-driven stories. My female characters tend to be the ones I enjoy writing the most and whose voices seem to come most naturally. I think a big part of that is because I was raised by, grew up around, and befriended lots of badass women over the course of my life.

So this is a thank you to all of the badass women who have helped shape me and inspire me. I wouldn’t be the badass I am without the badasses all of you are. Much love!

UPDATE: The movie was amazing! It was everything I wanted it to be and more. No Man’s Land had me all sorts of emotional.

Off course a few days after I make a post about how the best news about the upcoming The Dark Knight Risesis that it will be shot in 2D, they go and make an announcement about the cast. So I have no choice but to fanboy out and talk about that too.

The rumors had been floating around for a while that Catwoman would be in the movie, so there’s been plenty of speculation about who would be donning the skintight latex. And I’ve gotta say, I love the choice of Anne Hathaway. As far as beauty & talent go amongst young actresses, she’s tough to top (see Rachel Getting Married.)

Outside of the costume, I think she’ll make a great Selina Kyle. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was great in its own right, but it didn’t quite sync up with the Catwoman I know from the comics. My guess is that Nolan’s Catwoman is going to be closer to that found in Batman Year One. By actually being Selina Kyle, it’s already guaranteed to be leaps and bounds above the Halle Berry atrocity.

The other casting news is that Tom Hardy will be playing Bane, and this is the one that’s got me really excited. I loved him in Inception, and Knightfall is one of my favorite Batman story arcs. The biggest challenge that Bane poses is that, unfortunately, most moviegoers identify him with the brainless thug from Batman & Robin (a movie that, like Catwoman, is best forgotten.)

In truth, Bane is a brilliant tactician, and one of Batman’s more worthy adversaries, both in strength and intellect. I mean come on, Bane broke Batman’s back and took him out of action for a nice long time. You don’t do that by being a mindless thug. With Nolan’s Batman world being somewhat more realistic than the comics or the older Batman movies, I’m curious to see how they treat the Venom drug that Bane uses to amp up his strength.

My friend NeoKefka brought up a good point on his blog, that Bane is a great choice because he poses a significant physical threat to Batman, whereas Scarecrow & the Joker were both mental guys. It also takes the movie in a different direction, which was necessary after Heath Ledger’s iconic take on the Joker.

So the new Spider-Man musical has been all over the news in the last week. Seems like the budget has ballooned to $65 million, and the first preview performance was littered with problems, including five stoppages that left the actors suspended above the audience. I’m not so concerned by that, seeing as it’s a preview performance a month ahead of opening, and there are bound to be issues with all the technical wizardry that goes into a production like this.

I’m more concerned by reports that the musical itself isn’t that good. I’m still not too keen on the fact that they’re supposedly revamping the history of a beloved comic book character; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it for the sake of doing something different. The plot of Spider-Man, regardless of the medium it’s portrayed in, shouldn’t be a convoluted affair. It’s Spider-Man. We all know it. We all love it. Just putting it on Broadway in a musical form is enough to make it different. But as long as “Turn Off the Dark” doesn’t feature a dance sequence with an emo Tobey Maguire, it’ll automatically be better than Spider-Man 3.

I’m sad that some of the original cast had to drop out because of the delays. I would have liked to have seen Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin & Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane. Still, I like the idea of Reeve Carney as Peter Parker. His band, Carney, does some good music, and although I haven’t seen him act, I can’t wait to see him in Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of The Tempest when it comes out next week.

Even though I’m not expecting it to be the greatest musical ever, I still want to trek to New York to see it. If nothing else, I think it’ll be a fun show, and one that you’d have to experience on Broadway. I don’t see it going on national tours, and any regional productions would have to be drastically toned down in order to be possible.

Here’s a 60 Minutes special on the upcoming show. I gotta say, it looks really cool, and it’s got me pretty excited.